pigtails's Profile
OMG, homemade sherbet
Just wanted to put a plug in here for sherbet at home.... the cook's illustrated recipe takes only a few minutes and is stunningly delicious. seriously. orange, raspberry, and lime, are all so good. anyone have other variations that they have been enjoying?
ice cream recipe favorites?
does anyone have a recipe for a honey ice cream that they like? i'm not sure if i should replace all of the sugar with honey or not. thoughts?
seeking recipe: Last Course [by Claudia Fleming]
hey chowhounders...
save me, again.
i let someone borrow my copy of Claudia Fleming's Last Course. Does someone have it who can look inside and tell me the proportions for this delicious and simple recipe?
I think she calls it frozen ricotta. It's ricotta that you blend with sugar and honey, and spin in the ice cream machine. It's really quite amazing. Can someone remind me of the proportions therein? After that, everyone should go make it, and have it with the last of the strawberries.
Adding chocolate to ice cream
i find it helps to melt the chocolate with a bit of vegetable oil and then it freezes not quite so hard in the ice cream and it's better like that. then i make a thin thin sheet of it so that the chips are not too enormous as well.
Quick - need an inscription for a cookbook (wedding present)
i love books with inscriptions.
i got this here from a thread about a reading at a wedding:
It's an excerpt from the introduction to Volume One of Mastering the Art of French Cooking:
--------
Pay close attention to what you are doing while you work, for precision in small details can make the difference between passable cooking and fine food. If a recipe says, "cover casserole and regulate heat so liquid simmers very slowly," "heat the butter until its foam begins to subside," or "beat the hot sauce into the egg yolks by driblets," follow it. You may be slow and clumsy at first, but with practice you will pick up speed and style.
Allow your self plenty of time. Most dishes can be assembled, or started, or partially cooked in advance. If you are not an old campaigner, do not plan more than one long or complicated recipe for a meal or you will wear yourself out and derive not pleasure from your efforts.
If food is to be baked or broiled, be sure your oven is hot before the dish goes in. Otherwise soufflés will not rise, piecrusts will collapse, and gratinéed dishes will overcook before they brown.
A pot saver is a self-hampering cook. Use all the pans, bowls, and equipment you need, but soak them in water as soon as you are through with them, Clean up after yourself frequently to avoid confusion.
Train yourself to use your hands and fingers; they are wonderful instruments. Train yourself to handle hot foods; this will save time. Keep your knives sharp.
Above all, have a good time.
Greens - how do you prepare them
spinach with only lemon juice and salt.
and i've said before, kale, blanched, then sauteed with a shallot, a little nutmeg, and a splash of cream is amazingly delicious.
6 Dozen Eggs and a Quart of Heavy Cream
have you got an ice cream maker? you can use up lots of eggs like that.
fried egg sandwiches.
clafouti? souffle? waffles? lemon curd?
i love eggs. truly.
White Truffle Oil-Where to buy other than Whole Foods?
formaggio sells it. but it won't be cheap there, either. it's just an expensive product. if you keep it in the fridge it won't go bad and you can use the rest another time.
Putting money in tip jar, but server has turned away
Just to add a perspective from the other side of the counter . . .
I have worked before as a waitress and I have worked in many a coffee shop.
I NEVER look at a who tips or how much. There are two reasons for this: I don't have time, and also because I fear it would make me into a bitter, unhappy person. I give every customer great service - or at least I try to - why ruin it by thinking, man, and they didn't give me their change, or man, they didn't tip me 20%. I think it's wierd when customers force the issue - do they want me to thank them extra special? Is the genuine smile and fern on top of their latte not enough? Do you want me to pat your head, too? Or what? Tipping doesn't make you a hero: it just makes you a nice person who has an extra quarter. Luckily, I'm nice to all of my customers either way, so what difference does it make?
For all of you folks who "don't believe" in tipping: it doesn't matter to me, because I have no idea who you are. The change that gets thrown in the tip jar comes out to about $15 a day in some places, more in others. It is pocket change for us. We like it, we appreciate it, there are weeks when it's all we have in our pockets, but I can't see why anyone would get so worked up about a JAR. Why bother saying you do or don't believe in a JAR? I thought that beliefs would be reserved for important issues, such as god, war, and fidelity. But that's just me.
loads of graham crackers - don't say cheesecake!
i enjoy them with cream cheese.
i also enjoy them in a bowl of milk.
i guess i have simple tastes when it comes to graham crackers.
RITZ® Mock Apple Pie
Yes, I have made a vinegar pie before - I believe a fannie farmer recipe. Although it smells vinegary while baking, it tastes like a lemon custard when done. totally wierd! but amazing!
leftover steel cut oats
yeah, i use it in bread. there's a recipe in cook's illustrated baking as well, or sometimes i just wing it, using less liquid and adding the oatmeal. it makes a lovely dough.
i don't think you can really go from cooked oats to risotta texture, though.
you could use it as a thickener in a pureed soup i think.
Postum Substitute
Inka is very similar. i also like the celestial seasonings tea called roastaroma, although it is not so similar to postum.
cashew cookie recipe?
i have made this recipe from gourmet's december edition, dutch caramel cashew cookies. you make a cashew praline which you blend into cookie dough. it's delicious, definitely crunchy / chewy / melty. easier than it sounds.
http://www.gourmet.com/recipes/1970s/1972/03/dutch-caramel-cashew-cookies
Making a tender pie crust
i tried this recipe and it is pretty amazing.
anyone who is intimidated by pie dough should try it, because this dough is so easy to work with. seriously, it's like play do. it really has to be completely cold to roll, however. when blind-baking these crusts, i find they take a bit longer.
they don't replace all of the water with vodka. here's a link to the recipe:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=97330375
when i used this recipe i used some vanilla vodka i had lying around, it was a nice flavor element. no alcohol taste whatsoever.
Bittmans How to cook everything!
the muffin and pancake recipes weren't good. they were strangely lowfat, and tasted like it.
Boiling Bagels
i wonder if your bagels could possibly be coming from the store pre-boiled somehow?
roasted garlic soup from epicurious
yes, i did taste without the cream, it was still delicious. you could definitely use an immersion blender. the amount of cream is quite small, so the soup appears creamy whether or not you add the cream. the cream is really not a predominant element of the soup. it is just pure garlic goodness. if i was making it without any cream, i may consider adding a potato to it to round it out a bit.
i like the idea of bitter greens after this soup - maybe flank steak.
roasted garlic soup from epicurious
i made this soup last week and had a small cupful before i froze it for later use:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Roasted-Garlic-Soup-with-Parmesan-Cheese-100669
it is SO good, it's really amazingly delicious. it was all i could do to stop myself from drinking all of it.
the problem is, what to serve it with? you would smell like garlic for days if you ate all of it. i want to serve it before something, but what? any ideas? has anyone else made this soup?
Healthy one dish freezer meals
that indian style casserole you describe sounds awesome - i'd love to have the recipe if there is one! that would go over great in my house.
you can make a "crust" for quiche with just cooked brown rice and an egg - it's not like other quiche crust, but adds a pleasant textural element to the quiche.
i've frozen meatloaf with mashed sweet potatoes, needs only a salad.
I have bacon jam
put a couple eggs on the pizza three minutes before it's done, then you can squish the dippy eggs on the pizza. mmm
i second the peanut butter idea, i love bacon and peanut butter on and english muffin.
how about as an element of garlic bread.
the fine art of cooking for your SO, every day
i know, and isn't it somehow worse when they are like, oh, honey, it's still so delicious reheated! then you think to yourself, ak, you really don't get it! it was SO MUCH better the first time i made it!
what makes this funny, though, is that ms. p. always makes the morning coffee in our house, it's her job. and i admittedly often let mine go cold before i finish it. and this makes her totally annoyed! she calls me the "hot drink killer."
Boiling Bagels
bagels are not hard to make at home. the key is a good stiff dough. cook's illustrated has some good instructions regarding the dough. also, if you make any cinnamon raisin ones , remember than cinnamon slows / retards yeast (an error i made once). it's fun to make seed bagels, you can make any mix of seeds you like (i add a few fennel seeds). you just roll the bagels in the seeds after boiling and before baking. once i made some amazing garlic bagels with roasted garlic in the dough. YUM.
i just use plain water, personally, although malt would be an authentic touch i do not believe it is neccesary. you need to flip them over in the boiling water. they don't take long to boil or bake. oven at about 450.
the fine art of cooking for your SO, every day
i am so like you, yamalam. the appetizer concept is a great one, except that for us i don't think we'd wind up being hungry for dinner. and it would just be another thing for me fuss over, enough is enough in this case. isn't is so annoying when the easily satiated SO doesn't appreciate our cooking genius and prowess properly (with footrubs)?
we have talked about this issue . . . i mean, it took MONTHS before ms. p. realized how much i HATE it when she arrives at the table five minutes after i have served dinner, when it is lukewarm. now i do things such as give her several warnings about when dinner will be, and she has learned that she has to appear at the appointed moment, but still sometimes she forgets. so the fact that we have discussed this dinner conundrum means that i might figure it out a year or so from now (we've been together for 2 1/2 years now).
i know i could focus more on making meals that are quick, but even making rice, a veggie, and a sauteed something requires 40 minutes and planning (brown rice only in our house, and nowhere to buy decent fresh veggies in our neghborhood). and then the fun of cooking is sort of less fun for me, when i'm racing around with a hungry SO at 8:00 at night (that's when she gets home). that is so not what i enjoy about cooking. i enjoy cutting vegetables perfectly, conceptualizing the meal ahead of time, cleaning up as i work, and trying new things.
i think the key element is getting the SO to communicate earlier in the day with me about plans, and having a good stock of meals that won't suffer by being frozen so that i won't be sad if communication doesn't occur. we discussed today over brunch and she said she would try to do this.
we don't really cooperate well in the kitchen, mostly because food preparation to me is a self-soothing activity that i love, whereas to her it is somewhat of a chore. although she would willingly pitch in anyway if i asked her to, she is quite a bit slower than i am and so it isn't really all that much faster. at the end of her 12 hour day cooking isn't comforting for her the way it is for me. (honestly, i don't know what i would do if i couldn't cook to soothe myself!)
our schedules vary wildly and we rarely have weekends off together. some weeks we'll only have a few evenings off together, so i like to make them a little bit special. the evenings that tend to cause this issue are ones when i've been home in the afternoon and she's been at work. i do usually have an idea in my head of a meal that could be made in thirty minutes out of ingredients in the house for times when we both get home late and hungry, but i just wouldn't enjoy doing all of my cooking that way at all. another schedule element is that even though sometimes she'll get home quite late, i'll have to get up very early the next day, so a really late dinner prepared after she gets home would push my bedtime uncomfortably late.
i remember hearing about this idea of working 9 to 5, having dinner with your charming wife, perhaps going for a walk, before bed . . . but it just turns out that life isn't that way after all for us! on the other hand . . . maybe that would be kinda boring.
the fine art of cooking for your SO, every day
i just mean that if there is no dinner made, we wind up eating junk food at the pub near our house. or something like that. and the food i make at home, given the time and planning, is cheaper, more nutritious, and tastier than anything else in our neighborhood.
So What Would You Have Done?
don't you just hate that? great stories from everyone here . . .
i've never seen such a blatant case of this as yours, but this happens to me all the time in little ways every time i hang out with family. it happens because they think i am a good cook, and they think i will make tasty things, but every time it happens, i'm like, sheesh, you should have told me i was making dinner, i would have brought ingredients! do you really think i can do some sort of magic, or what? now i head this off by bringing ingredients when i visit - a bunch of fresh herbs, a bunch of lemons, some good cheese, etc.
it's worse when they try to get me to "help" them with a meal that is already partially cooked - it's much harder to fix food than it is to make it good the first time around. once i start tinkering with it, i get invested in wanting it to be the way i would have done it in the first place, which is impossible at that point. i try to head off this particular issue by staying out of the kitchen at all costs.
the sad thing is, i love cooking and i love cooking for my family, but these surprise settings are no fun. and i would be more than happy to eat a meal that someone else made for me - i'm not critical of food that other people make. isn't it wierd that people show love / respect by doing things that drive us so crazy?
What's your favorite grocery store stock and why?
college inn. nice clean flavor. also, cook's illustrated did blind tasting and they agreed with me.
the fine art of cooking for your SO, every day
so in my house i do 95% of the cooking. there are myriad reasons for this, but i do enjoy doing it, and ms. pigtails is fairly intimidated by my abilities. also, because of the way our finances are arranged i do all of the grocery shopping, so i plan ahead. it's my opinion that i'm perceived as being a good cook primarily because i'm a good planner. i don't like to make "instant food," so i have to plan meals ahead of time. i also pack lunch, make granola, etc., myself. this is a process that i truly do enjoy, most of the time.
however, this annoying thing happens. ms. pigtails has a sort of stressful job where the day can be somewhat unpredictable, and she doesn't get home until it's time for dinner, so i can't wait until she gets home to think about dinner. also, ms. pigtails is miserable and cranky when she gets too hungry. sometimes she ends up eating lunch so late in the day that she is not hungry. other times, she ends up starving the second she walks in the door. also, if i don't make dinner, there are not really any healthy other options available to us. furthermore, i have a pet peeve where i hate for food i've cooked to get cold before it is eaten. so the idea of simply reheating things in the microwave is not really satisfying to me on a daily basis.
of course, like most chowhounds who like to cook, i also like to cook food that other people will enjoy. but somehow my plans keep being confounded when it comes to dinnertime at our house. i would love to hear how other people have negotiated this sort of thing with their significant others, and what arrangements they have agreed upon.
What to eat with cottage cheese?
OMG, me too! i love triscuits and cottage cheese!
i also love it with granola and berries.
